This is not a reconfigured Barbie doll; it's completely unique and original, custom made for Dinotopia.

Although the Dinotopia toy line never went into production due to reversals in the movie project at Columbia, Hasbro's toymakers made a beautiful group of proposals, and their marketing people were excited about the prospect of that rare thing: a toy line designed for both boys and girls.
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Sylvia appeared first in Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time in 1992.
Thanks, Michael Stone and Robert Gould.

Happy New Year, everyone. One of the things I'm excited about in 2014 is the release of a greatly expanded new edition of Dinotopia: First Flight from Dover Publications. The book will be coming out this April.
I just finished checking the proofs. Here's what my studio floor looks like. This new edition is going to be very lavishly produced, beginning with an unabridged republication of my 1999 story about Gideon Altaire, one of Dinotopia's early heroes who learns to pilot a giant pterosaur to challenge the mechanized empire of Poseidos.

The second half of the book includes a bonus of over 45 new images, including never-before-published storyboards, concept art, vehicle designs, and backstory illustrations, many of which I created just for this edition.

The written part of the new supplement fleshes out some of Dinotopia's turbulent origin stories during the ancient period known as the "Age of Heroes." We'll include a cinematic treatment that I wrote about a character named Blake Terrapin, who leads the resistance on the ground while Gideon takes to the air.


The relatively peaceful world that you may know from the other three books was forged on the flames of conflict, where human and saurian alliances were severely tested, and unlikely heroes emerged to face off some of the greatest challenges ever to threaten Dinotopia.

I'll share some of the new artwork in future posts as we get closer to the release date.

Meanwhile, you can get the other three Dinotopia books from Amazon or order them from my online store:

The experience of seeing how a driver communicates with draft horses inspired me when I painted this image of a Triceratops pulling a turnip cart. You'll note that there are no reins; the driver (and Bix) are using voice signals entirely to communicate with the Triceratops. The painting originally appeared in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara and later in Imaginative Realism. 

You can own this original painting. It is currently available for sale at the Daniel Maghen Gallery in Paris.

Previous posts on GurneyJourney:
Spokewheeling (compositional principle using this painting)
Ground Driving (me walking behind two of the Belgians)

Thanks, Damian

Dinotopia has arrived at the Arkell Museum of Art in Canajoharie, New York. The exhibition of original artwork "Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney" opens today at 1:00.

At 2:30, I'll be in attendance to give a family lecture on the making of Dinotopia, followed by a booksigning.


The exhibition will feature major works from Dinotopia, The World Beneath, and Journey to Chandara, along with maquettes, preliminary sketches, and plein air works that inspired the fantasy world.


To connect Dinotopia to the tradition of imaginative painting, the Arkell will also exhibit J. Georges Vibert's painting of Gulliver on the Island of Lilliput, which is featured in Imaginative Realism. I'll be visiting a local elementary school on Monday to talk dinosaurs.
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More info on the lecture

I constructed this very rough maquette for Arthur Denison's submersible using cardboard for the body profile and a clear plastic egg shape, which I filled with kit-bashed plastic model parts. The long gray pieces came from a model railroad supply store.

As you can see, I didn't follow the maquette closely at all, but it was really valuable for imagining Arthur Denison's submersible. I also referenced reconstructions of Bushnell's Turtle, a Revolutionary-era ancestor of submarines.


Combined with a kronosaur maquette that I had on hand, along with underwater photos of whales, I felt more sure of myself when I tackled a more difficult scene like this one, from Dinotopia: The World Beneath. 

The Arkell has a fine permanent collection American art by Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Maurice Prendergast, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as a full-size replica of Rembrandt's Night Watch.
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The Arkell Museum is at 2 Erie Blvd., Canajoharie, NY 13317 Phone (518) 673-2314
"Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney" at the Arkell Museum
Gurney lecture October 27

Reference maquettes by paleoartist Mick Ellison

"I make quick maquettes from paper by cutting up my sketches and filling them out with tape or newspaper... here's a quick pic of one I'm using for that Andrewsarchus illustration I'll be working on."

Reference maquette of Sinornithosaurus by Mick Ellison

"And here's the maquette I did of Sinornithosaurus using those rooster hackles I mentioned to you. You can get them online at fishing supply places like the Caddis Fly Shop, or if you ever find yourself down in the feather district along 38th Street [of New York City], I go to the Feather Place. I found that dipping the ends in Duco worked best for easy manipulation/placement and they set securely after several minutes."

Here's what Denison's journal looks like, where these drawings were recorded. This is built from cast latex, brass, and copper over a real antique book. I made it as a display prop for a Dinotopia art exhibition at the Smithsonian.

The final painting didn't look much like the maquette, but building the miniature helped me to really imagine the world in three dimensions.

Order the original Dinotopia book signed by the author with a "making-of" afterword.
Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time from Amazon
Previously: Treetown (Part of the series on the making of Dinotopia)

North Sentinel Island (left) and Dinotopia

Hidden away in the Bay of Bengal, east of India, North Sentinel Island is about the same area of Manhattan. The people who live there have remained to the present day almost entirely unstudied by anthropologists, untouched by first world diseases, and unspoiled by tourists. It is the last place on earth undisturbed by modern civilization.

The island has enjoyed this condition for a variety of unusual circumstances. The entire coastline is surrounded by impassable coral reefs. There is no reliable harbor. There's nothing on the island worth claiming by more powerful nations. The view on Google Earth shows solid tree cover and no sign of roads, settlement, or agriculture.

However, there appear to be between 50 and 400 people living there. No one knows for sure how many. They speak a language that no one else understands. They use and cherish fire, but it is believed they don't know how to make it. They haven't developed the paddle, so they can't power their dugouts to the nearby Andaman Islands, and have never developed trade. Two cargo ships, the MV Rusley and MV Primrose grounded on the coast in 1977 and 1981. Most of the crew was rescued, and the inhabitants scavenged iron from the wrecks for arrowheads.

The Sentinelese fiercely rebuff all attempted visits or gifts. If anyone tries to greet them from the outside world, nearly naked warriors appear on the beach and attack with spears and arrows. Despite several attempts to make contact, usually by leaving gifts on the beach, the Indian government has decided to leave them undisturbed, and now arrests anyone who attempts to approach the island.

What stories do they tell each other about the few helicopters that have hovered briefly over their beaches? What have they made from the parts they salvaged from the wrecked ships? What do they know that we have forgotten?
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Wikipedia on North Sentinel Island
Mental Floss: The Stone Age People of North Sentinel Island

The Watch City Steampunk Festival is a retro-Victorian extravaganza, with goggles, corsets, tophats, gears, and steam engines.


(Video link) The weekend event is held near the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham, Massachusetts. Scattered throughout the town center are vendors, workshops, films, authors, musicians, and dancers.

I was there (wearing Arthur Denison's coat) to give a lecture on Dinotopia. In this video, a calliope plays John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell March, also used by Monty Python.

Watch City Festival

Warren Woodson recreated the map of Dinotopia as a wood sculpture.

For me, making a map is the best stimulant for building worlds and telling stories.
Physical geography map, with emphasis on landform relief. Painted in oil on board.


Seafloor relief, shown in perspective, with the island lifted up to show the caves. Inspired by the 1960s seafloor renderings by Tibor Toth for National Geographic.


Expedition route map. I developed a rough version of this along with the story outline. The final is in oil, about the size of a postcard. The seafloor texture is drybrushed over white board, a fast way to work.


Another route map showing a close-up section of the eastern coastline. The locator map at upper left places the detail map in context.


Antique maps are more convincing if they're made with antique tools. This one is made with a dip pen and brown ink on smooth watercolor board. The watercolor washes around the coast were laid down first when it was in pencil stage.


Here's a close-up of the map above to show the graded hatching of the mountain reliefs, typical of engraved maps of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Traveler's maps were often folded, so I  abraded some fold lines into the surface.


Here's a hand-drawn and hand-lettered city map drawn in ink, with a flourished title block and a "rubber stamp" suggesting its provenance in a museum collection. The lettering is not on an overlay, so I couldn't make mistakes. This is from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.


City map of Chandara, showing organic street grid and canals. All sorts of street perspectives can be plotted from a master map like this.


Here's a close-up of the same city in Dinotopia. This is called a building plan, where the buildings are sliced away a little above the ground. Walls are lines and columns are dots. Note the fancy illustrated title block, an exuberant touch that expresses something about the confidence of the city.


I love computer tools, but at the same time I also love the risk and commitment required by dip pens, circle templates, triangles, ruling pens, ships curves, and parallel rules. I used them because I thought they would give the final result a more authentic flavor.

All of these maps have been exhibited in museum shows of Dinotopia artwork. Because they are hand-drawn and hand-painted physical objects, they take on a tangible presence, and they become valuable touchstones in the history and life of an intellectual property.

I'm pleased to announce our newest Dinotopia themed collection of Copro Lights®.

Working with leading paleontologists and the finest home designers, we have created an extensive selection of lighting accessories that feature accurate resin replicas of fossilized dinosaur droppings.

He mentioned the book The Great Gatsby, the Café de Flore in Paris, his Morgan silk jacket....and Dinotopia. He says: "On a stroll through Tumblr, I discovered the whimsical fantasy paintings of the 54-year-old U.S. illustrator. One of his favorite subjects: dinosaurs."

Mr. Margrander's other favorite things include his garden in Lower Bavaria, the song "Nagh el Borda" by Oum Kalthoum, Star Wars, and the word "Absolutely!"
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Thanks, Mr. Margrander! Kai Margrander's blog: "The Talented Mr. M"
Courtesy of the print edition of Glamour magazine, German edition, February 2013 issue.
The original painting of "Garden of Hope" is still on view through March 13 in New Hampshire.

I recently completed five new paintings for a book called Nuthin' But Mech 2, which will be published later this year. The book is a collaboration of 35 concept artists who love to paint robots, spacecraft, walkers, and other kinds of mech designs.


Here's one of my pictures called "Intruder." It is set in Dinotopia's dramatic ancient period known as the "Age of Heroes." The image shows a crab-like vehicle known as a sprog patrolling the marketplace of Prosperine, just behind a Triceratops.


The painting uses sepia watercolor and colored pencil to suggest the vérité look of an old photograph. This animated gif captures a few steps in the process. The first step shows a pencil drawing with a light wash over the surface. Then I painted sample area of the foreground and background to establish the range of values and the atmospheric perspective. Then it was a matter of carrying each area to finished effect with brush and colored pencil, fixing goofs where necessary with gouache.

For example, note the man facing us at extreme left. I sketched his head in too big at first, so I had to shrink his head a couple of times until he fit into the perspective. The warm color cast at the end is not a change in the painting but an adjustment in Photoshop.

Brain Children
• The illustration board I used is a Cottonwood Arts cold press watercolor booklet with 16 glue-bound heavyweight pages. It's a nice format for hand painted concept pieces or plein air studies. Cottonwood Arts is the brainchild of John Park, one of the other contributors to NBM2.
• The blog that started it all: Nuthin' but Mech, brainchild of Lorin Wood, another contributer to the book and a senior conceptual designer for Gearbox Software.
• The publisher is Design Studio Press, brainchild of Scott Robertson, yet another contributor to NBM2.